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on MENA - Middle East and North Africa |
| By: | World Bank |
| Abstract: | The public social insurance system in Egypt plays a critical role in maintaining the cohesion of society within the country’s broader social protection framework. The system has a long history that dates back to the mid-19th century and includes various laws that have been introduced over time to provide different categories of workers with pensions and other benefits. As a result, Egypt has one of the largest publicly managed pension systems in the Middle East and North Africa region, one that supports a significant share of the employed population as well as provides pensions to the elderly, people with disabilities, widows, and orphans. This note outlines the key features of the pension system reform and modernization program. It also highlights the insights gained to inform adjustments to relevant policies and enhance administration and pension asset management. While the authors provide a summary of the parametric reform, a detailed assessment of its fiscal impact falls beyond the scope of this note. |
| Date: | 2025–02–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:202830 |
| By: | Shehab, Elmekdad |
| Abstract: | Between February and April 2026, a joint American-Israeli air campaign against Iran drew retaliatory strikes across the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Global commentary settled quickly into a familiar frame, asking what the disruption meant for oil prices, shipping routes, and world supply chains. The question of what it meant for the Gulf itself, for its sixty million people and the trajectory of its development model, received far less attention. This monograph asks what the war revealed about the structure of the Gulf economy and where vulnerability proved greatest. It applies the Vulnerability Assessment Framework, a three- dimensional analytical tool rooted in the IPCC tradition and extended to economic systems by Briguglio et al. (2009) and Guillaumont (2010), to three foundational sectors: energy, food, and water. Across each, the framework decomposes vulnerability into exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Two patterns emerge, one sectoral and one systemic. At the sectoral level, exposure is uniformly high across all three sectors. Sensitivity varies with the time each sector grants for a response, lowest in energy and highest in water. Adaptive capacity moves in the opposite direction: strongest where urgency is least, weakest where it is greatest. At the systemic level, the analysis argues that Gulf diversification ambitions are geographically constrained. Despite two decades of effort, the economic tracks built to move beyond hydrocarbons, namely finance, tourism, aviation, and digital infrastructure, rest on the same foundational geography as the hydrocarbon model itself. What the war revealed is the need for a reframing of the challenge ahead away from the familiar question of how to move beyond oil and gas, and toward a harder one. How does a state build what this study terms a geographically hedged economy, one whose resilience does not depend on the stability of the very geography it cannot leave? |
| Keywords: | Gulf economies, economic vulnerability, GCC, Strait of Hormuz, energy security, food security, water security, Iran, vulnerability assessment framework, economic diversification |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:341147 |
| By: | Serena Canaan, Pierre Mouganie, Ali Abboud, Samuel Bazzi, Antoine Deeb (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how authority figures in higher education shape gender norms over the long run. We exploit the random assignment of first-year students to faculty advisors at an elite university in the Middle East and combine administrative records with an alumni survey measuring gender attitudes up to 24 years later. Women assigned to female advisors adopt more egalitarian views about politics and work, while men become more conservative. These effects are strongest among religious students and in male-dominated STEM fields, where female authority is especially counter stereotypical. The effects may persist through reinforcement, as women assigned to female advisors later sort toward female instructors and more gender-themed courses. Our results do not appear to be driven by generic exposure to successful women. Instead, they point to a distinct role for authority in transmitting gender norms: randomized exposure to high-achieving female peers has little effect, while the largest impacts come from senior and high-value-added female advisors. A simple framework combining belief updating and identity-based status threat helps explain these patterns of female empowerment and male backlash. More broadly, our findings reveal a progress paradox whereby gains in female representation in elite authority expand opportunities for women while intensifying backlash among men, thereby deepening gender polarization. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp26-09 |
| By: | Chahine, Marie |
| Abstract: | This study explores strategic pathways for transitioning the Lebanese economy from a fragile, import-dependent rentier model to a sovereign production-based framework. The research presents a five-year comprehensive strategic plan (2026–2030) centered on domestic financing, the activation of productive sectors, and the implementation of a rigorous four-party governance system to secure the national sovereign wealth fund. Central to this transformation is the development of a unique mathematical model: the Total Sovereign Harmony Equation (TUSH). This equation—S = A \cdot \int \frac{Z + G \cdot L}{E} \, dt—integrates philosophical logic (Aristotle’s Constant), structural reform (Riemann Function), resource geometry (Einstein Tensor), domestic liquidity (Cosmological Constant), and innovation efficiency (Edison Factor). Quantitative objectives for 2030 include increasing productive sectors' contribution to 30% of GDP, neutralizing the USD through a 30% barter system in local currency, and achieving a 50% annual growth in exports. The research concludes that restoring Lebanon's economic sovereignty is a structural necessity achievable through the integration of scientific logic, digital systems, and resource engineering. |
| Keywords: | Lebanon Economy, Sovereign Production, Mathematical Modeling, TUSH Equation, Economic Reform, Governance, Domestic Financing. |
| JEL: | O2 O21 O23 |
| Date: | 2026–03–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128711 |